UFC 79: Nemesis
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Mandalay Bay Events Center
Las Vegas, NV

By Stephen Quadros, “The Fight Professor”

2007 was another massive year for the Ultimate Fighting Championship. 13 pay per views, 6 Ultimate Fight Nights and two more seasons of TUF (The Ultimate Fighter). Whew! Their production crew must be weary. But as the visibility of their product grows, so does their need to book solid fight cards from top to bottom.

After a relatively lukewarm response to the ‘running on fumes’ lineup of UFC 77: “Validation”, “Nemesis” certainly shows the company returning to somewhat of it’s previous, formidable self. Although there are no championship matches here, it doesn’t matter. A good number of these are fights people want to see.

This is the third time around for these boys, but this has to come as a bit of a let down for Matt Hughes. He was originally slated to challenge his TUF season 6 “nemesis” Matt “The Terra” Serra the New Yorker’s UFC welterweight title, which Hughes owned for so many years, before losing it to St. Pierre…who in turn was knocked out and lost the title to Serra. Can you say ‘trilogy’? But Matt Serra sustained a back injury in training and was forced to pull out of the grudge match with Hughes. In stepped “Rush” (St. Pierre) to save the day. It’s true that Hughes has a score to settle with the Canadian (Georges) but it pales emotionally to all the bad blood he had with Serra. All Georges did was beat Hughes up, knock him out and take his belt away from him. Nothing personal. Matt Serra constantly goaded Hughes on the 6th season of TUF. So the fire of a Hughes/Serra confrontation will have to wait. Hopefully it won’t be extinguished by further unseen chain reactions or monkey wrenches. Hughes will have to work hard to get his head into this match with Georges because he has so much on his mind: he left longtime trainer Pat Miletich, opened his own gym/started his own team, showed cracks in his emotional armor on the last season of TUF/eluded to an exit strategy from the game and was so propelled in his preparation for this fight by his want to physically shut Serra up. Now he’s faced with a different animal, albeit one he knows all too well - the super upbeat, enthusiastic and mega-talented Georges St. Pierre. Georges St. Pierre is always motivated. But he will really bring it in this match. He knows that a loss to Hughes will put him on the bench, outside of the title picture for a long, long time. Even though this is not a championship match, Georges understands that it is more important because it is a fight for survival; a situation further festered since he is coming of the KO loss to Serra. I thought Hughes would be favored against Serra because of the style matchup, technique and size but here against St. Pierre there are going to be some problems for the man from Illinois. One is that St. Pierre thoroughly dominated Matt the second time they fought (hell, he was doing great in the first one too…until he got armbarred). In that fight Georges seemed to peak and completely wrote the blueprint of how to dissect Hughes. All he has to do is repeat that performance and he’ll most likely win. But that is no easy task because Matt Hughes is beyond simply being “game”. As Dana White always points out, Matt is the most dominant 170-pound fighter the UFC has ever seen. But he is nearing that point where the biggest battle is getting up for the training, restarting the fire inside himself. When a fighter has been at or near the top for so long its possible to lose the hunger. After 40 fights many athletes level off and show the signs of decline, first mentally and then the body soon follows. Hughes knows that the world will be waiting for this to appear in his performance on December 29th. Speed is what will get things done in this fight and the man who brings that element is Georges St. Pierre. His agility is unrivalled in the current UFC welterweight category. He will out speed, out hustle and eventually out strike Matt Hughes. At all costs he must avoid having Matt on top of him if/when the fight goes to the floor. Aside from that, I predict Georges will take this by TKO in an incredible fight that most likely will go into the third round.

Most of the drama in this match comes from the fact that, although these two once dominated their parallel universes, Liddell in the UFC and Wanderlei in Pride, they are both returning from devastating knockout losses (Quinton Jackson dumped Chuck truck while Dan Henderson stiffed Silva). So the pressure is on. Stylistically the ‘on paper’ angle is that “The Iceman” and “The Ax Murderer” (I was there in Brazil when former UFC matchmaker John Perretti gave him that nickname) is a train wreck just waiting to happen…”if” they engage. They both are aware going in the danger the other possesses, Chuck with his punches and Wanderlei with his knees. So it’s possible that there may be a lot of staring and waiting. Why? Not because Liddell has pretty much become a counter fighter and Silva is known to press the action. But because this later point is where the Brazilian has gotten into trouble sometimes when he does leave himself open when he is aggressive. Silva MUST fight smart against Liddell, at least until he lands a solid shot. Neither fighter is known for clean boxing technique, but Chuck loops his punches a little less than Wandy does, so for this reason I have to favor the American in the slug out. In this tension-filled contest, as much as the promoters and fans don’t want to hear this, I see the more patient fighter being the victor. And that will be Chuck Liddell. They have both made their reps by out-striking wrestling or grappling based mixed martial artists and fans have salivated over this match for years, seeing both as being strikers. Storyline-wise there’s no “real” bad blood here other than that which surely the front office covertly encourages: “I’ll destroy him”, “I will knock him out”, “I want to fffffffffffff…(ight) Chuck”, etc. It’s almost like fighters are required to utter these phrases anymore to build the heat and get those in the public sectors, who really don’t care about the actual skill involved, to order the match. But Chuck and especially Wanderlei have always been all to glad to state their guiltless intentions, the KO. Chuck versus Wanderlei represents a clash of historic icons, better late than never because some view some opine that their best years may be behind them. Looking ahead, if Chuck stops Silva, and I’m predicting he will, it doesn’t really make sense for him to get another shot at current UFC light-heavyweight champion Quinton Jackson, since Rampage already stopped Liddell twice. If Silva beats Liddell there is more to promote simply because Jackson was KO’d twice by The Ax Murderer and he wants to avenge that situation. And the UFC can have a field day with the two former Pride stars refueling their smack-filled feud from yesteryear.

Lyoto Machida is potentially a bad matchup for the thunderous Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou. Soko’s two biggest wins, his stunning KOs over noted top ten-ranked Brazilians Rogerio Nogueira and Ricardo Arona, were accomplished when he caught both guys asleep at the wheel. Lyoto is one of the most elusive light-heavyweights and will look to frustrate Thierry into missing wildly. If Sokoudjou cannot dispose of the karate man early, this fight, like his opponent, will mysteriously slip through his fingers. Machida by late TKO.

Stephen Quadros, "The Fight Professor", has worked as a host and play-by-play commentator for some of the world's greatest fight organizations including: PRIDE, K-1 and Inoki Bom Ba Ye. He currently balances his activities between acting, working as a analyst/color commentator for ShoXC (Showtime), Cage Rage (UK), the International Fight League (IFL) on Fox Sports Net and MyNetwork TV, hosting his own radio show at Sherdog.com (every Tuesday at 12 noon PST), choreographing fight scenes for feature films and playing drums for the bands Snow and Whipped Cream. Visit Mr. Quadros on the worldwide web at: www.StephenQuadros.com or MySpace.com/StephenQuadros.